The Teacup Isn’t Your Mother
Crow’s Feet Prompt #39: Treasured Items
“The teacup isn’t your mother. The clock isn’t your Dad.” Words such as these were spoken by our clutter-busting teacher online during the pandemic. He even suggested we devise some sort of mini-ceremony to say goodbye to objects that were somewhat sentimental but not all that important to us, symbolically thanking whoever gave them to us before finding them a new home.
I did that, in a way, with at least two items. One was an old, stained apron of my mom’s that was a reminder of her, but really not anything special. Believe it or not, I had even put it in my suitcase with other items I flew home with after she passed. The other was one of those rare gifts my deceased husband had given me, a chain with a heart on it, but in the end, a piece of broken costume jewelry.
As we grow older, so often we hang onto things because of the memories they elicit or the person who gave them to us, and not because we find them beautiful or useful.
Only in very recent years have I brought myself to dispose of quite a few old college notebooks and folders of conference notes. Had I referred back to them in decades? I had not. They represented “learning” that I should either have retained, or I didn’t. Period.
My husband’s old ties were the last of his clothing to go; it was especially easy to do so when my granddaughter told me she’d seen Pinterest ideas of making skirts with ties. What treasures from him are most meaningful? Above all, his letters, when he was courting me, and his cards for anniversaries and such. There, his love and humor shone.
I find it hard to choose one treasured item besides letters, but one gift from my husband is still with me: a diamond. No, not an engagement ring. I told him that seemed way too much to spend on, and something I might lose. So he gave me a large, transparent volcanic rock crystal cut like a diamond. “Since you won’t accept the other one…” It is often on display in the china cabinet.
Sometimes the question is posed: What would you rescue if your home was about to go up in flames? I used to think of my Bible. Now, I’d ask: which one? Which one has the most important notes in it? Otherwise, I can always find another Bible.
Photographs jog memories and, to me, are important treasures. Even so, nowadays, so many of them are in digital form and depend on devices. Then I have dozens of old albums, full of memories: our wedding, our kids and us at different stages of life, our friends, our pets. I certainly couldn’t run out of my house with all of them!
One last item: my writing is valuable to me, whether it is to others, so I still treasure diaries and scrapbooks from way back, especially those with my poems. Now most of my more recent poems, writings, and essays are in digital form, and I once suffered a considerable loss when a computer “died” and nothing was retrievable. After that, I back up my work. Now I wonder if my family will care to find things in digital heaven after I die! This blog, of course, will have a time limit.
In our childhood, our favorite treasures may have been a shell from the beach or a well-used teddy bear. In the twilight of our lives, our “chest” is more likely to be full of photographs and love letters, but above all, our cherished memories.